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Reinventing Boston’s Food Scene

As Boston reinvents New England classics, Rob Crossan goes in search of the dishes and districts that are at the forefront of the movement.

22 September 2017

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The crab is resting on a bed of black rice and, somewhat more remarkably, a beaming LED light.

Dimly illuminated, tender and festooned with harissa and Ras el Hanout (an unctuous North African spice) the crab is the centrepiece of the kind of dish that, in lesser hands, would be little more than wilfully pretentious nonsense.

But this is the world of Chef Daniel Bruce and Chef de Cuisine Keith Bombaugh, pioneers of a food scene in Boston which, at long last, is starting to move on from endless bowls of clam chowder.

Urbane, stylish yet with a distinct preference for discretion over ostentation, Boston’s creaky Fenway Park (one of the oldest sports stadiums in the United States) and dark walled taverns full of tall tales and pewter tankards all speak of a city which is more than content to wallow in its, admittedly impressive, heritage.

Yet Boston, as the staging point for the battles, both political and military, that led to independence, is not as afraid as you may think to embrace change – although it’s all done in a style more evolutionary than revolutionary.

The natural maritime larder of the city and its surroundings is, in Daniel Bruce’s ‘Meritage’ restaurant, a component of Boston that, under exploited for too long, is finally being given centre stage.

For Bruce, a lifelong New England native who set up the now world-renowned Boston Wine Festival back in 1989, Meritage is a space where not just his cooking prowess, but also his memories and aromas of New England childhoods in forests, shores and meadows, are allowed full expression.

The tasting menus are divided into wine pairings, one with red and one with white plus there’s a $165 Chef’s Tasting Menu for the true sybarite.

The room is a delightfully clubby space, quiet enough for conversation to flow but not burdened with that awful museum-hush that suggests the dreaded imminent arrival of a cloche or an overly obsequious waiter offering to ‘explain the menu’.

Here, flavours are bold, bosky and frequently brilliant; the highlight on one evening visit early in the fall, when the sunset overlooking the harbour turned the lighting inside the restaurant into beguiling hues of grapefruit and jade, included ‘campfire trout’ with summer onion, black trumpet and chanterelle mushrooms and Iberico ham paired with a 2009 Lambrusco di Modena from Emila-Romanga.

Stately yet ebullient with its texture and flavour, the trout had a velvety creaminess that was the shimmering evening gown to the slim fitting dinner jacket tautness of the wine – a welcome import from the well-regarded Cantina della Volta winery.

Bruce has been working at Boston Harbor Hotel for almost three decades – extraordinary longevity in an industry which rivals top flight soccer for its constant revolving door of talent.

Though the location may have much to do why so many staff stay at the Boston Harbor for so long. Located on Rowe’s Wharf, there are few finer ways to arrive in Boston than to take a water taxi direct from the airport across the bay and moor up at the hotel’s own marina – the journey take less than ten minutes and is best taken at night when Boston’s skyline lights up like a twinkling jewellery box.

Rooms here are gently washed over in hues of deep blue and cream; there’s a nautical feel though there’s not a cheesy ship’s wheel or anchor motif in sight.

Rain showers, marble floors, bedside iPads and harbour views combine to create the kind of genuinely calming vibe that lesser hotels seem to think can only be achieved with scented candles and muzak on the in-room flat screen.

Stepping outside the hotel on the street side leads you straight onto Boston’s most remarkable pedestrian friendly space.

The Rose F Kennedy Greenway (named after the mother of JFK who lived and worked here as a young senator) is an almost two-mile long stretch of park land and foot paths that winds from China Town in the east all the way through to the North End, aka Little Italy neighbourhood.

Peppered with installation art, murals, food trucks, zip lines, beer stands and fairground rides, this, difficult as it is to envisage now, was once the site for a much-reviled elevated highway built after the Second World War for the burgeoning motor generation to power through Boston without stopping.

The ‘Big Dig’, a near two-decade project, has put the expressway underground, creating the Greenway which, for the first time in decades, means that the waterfront, the Financial District and the North End are now linked up and reachable on foot.

It is the latter district that has opened up the most since the removal of the Expressway. Still with a large, and very visible Italian presence, the North End still has the kind of old-style trattorias, coffee shops and restaurants where one feels that, should you loiter outside for long enough there’s a good chance of Ray Liotta driving up and stepping out of a coupe, replete in point collars and camel coats.

Yet an influx of young professionals to the North End has done nothing to dim the popularity of restaurants like Daily Catch, a space with an interior barely larger than a snooker table, where calamari, fried, stuffed and marinated are served up with the minimum of pretension.

Maria’s Pastry Shop looks humdrum from the outside, but the utilitarian interior is worth lingering in for a quite staggeringly perfect ‘cannolo’- ricotta cheese and cream bulging out from a tight tube of sweet pastry.

Yet it is a brisk 45-minute walk (or a quick trip on the creaky Green Line trolley) to the Beacon Hill district that the true blue-blooded refinement of Boston reaches its apex.

The brownstones and Greek Revival and Gothic homes of this leafy, lamp-lit ‘hood has been the place that Henry James,, Louisa May Alcott and Robert Frost have all called home. These days the most famous resident is former Secretary of State John Kerry.

The older families here are still known as the ‘Boston Brahmins’ for their place at the top of the social pecking order. Yet there is nothing overly haughty about this neighbourhood. Rather, the prevailing mood on a fall afternoon, as the flowering trees drip blossoms onto the paving slabs, is that of contentment without smugness and a commitment to the mores of discretion and humbleness.

The sheer level of civility, even by the standards of New England, can result in leaving Boston with a sense of almost giddiness. As Henry James himself wrote in his 1886 novel ‘The Bostonians’

‘Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don’t know what to make of them all’.

Words by Rob Crossan

FLYING PREMIUM CLASS ON NORWEGIAN AIR

When is business class not actually business class? For Norwegian, it’s when the price tag doesn’t even come close to the sky high fees charged by other airlines for the best seats on the plane.

Flying from Gatwick to Boston in barely seven hours direct on a Dreamliner jet, Norwegian’s Premium cabin is a new take on the experience of enhanced comfort in the skies- but with a genuinely eyebrow raising price tag of a mere £720 return.

For this the benefits just keep coming. From priority check in at Gatwick and a quick route through the priority lane at security, head straight to the No. 1 lounge where alcoholic drinks are complimentary and the (also complimentary) menu takes in the likes of Moroccan chicken or Greek salad on flatbread.

On board, the armchair sized chairs deliver on the comfort front- especially with 15 more inches of leg room than in a standard seat.

Once airborne at 30,000 feet, its time to indulge in the personal flat screen menu of movies and documentaries before a three course dinner- served with wine, beer or spirits.

Combine this with two checked bags to bring on board as hand luggage and a state of the art air system meaning a lower cabin altitude meaning less jetlag. The result: hopping across the pond in genuine style has simply never been this affordable before. Here, for once, is a genuine rarity in the skies: the chance to turn left when stepping on board without worrying about the price.

Norwegian (Norwegian.com) fly from Gatwick to Boston from £720 return in their Premium cabin.

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